The Sanctuary at Bath in the Roman Empire
The Sanctuary at Bath in the Roman Empire
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The Roman sanctuary at Bath has long been used in scholarship as an example par excellence of religious and artistic syncretisms in Roman Britain. With its monumental temple, baths, and hot springs, its status as one of the most significant Roman sites in the province is unquestioned. But our academic narratives about Roman Bath are also rooted in the narratives of our more recent past. This book begins by exploring how Georgian and Victorian antiquaries developed our modern story of a healing sanctuary at Roman Bath. It shows that a curative function for the sanctuary is in fact unsupported by the archaeological evidence. It then retells the story of Roman Bath by focusing on three interlinked aspects: the entanglement of the sanctuary with Roman imperialism, the role of the hot springs in the lives of worshipers, and Bath's place within the wider world of the western Roman Empire.
- Refutes the model that Roman Bath was a healing sanctuary, and proposes a new model for understanding this important archaeological site
- Uses a wide array of archaeological, iconographic and epigraphic material to explore the site's social purpose in the Roman period
- Puts the Roman-period site into the broader context of religion in the western Roman Empire
Product details
January 2020Hardback
9781108493192
238 pages
253 × 182 × 15 mm
0.63kg
54 b/w illus. 3 maps
Available
Table of Contents
- 1. Discovering Roman Bath
- 2. From Bath to Aquae Sulis
- 3. Experiencing Roman Bath
- 4. Aquae Sulis and empire
- 5. Water from the Earth
- 6. The local writ large
- Conclusion: from Aquae Sulis to Bath.
